This post is part of the Real Food at Walmart series. This is the 4th post in the series … you can find the first post here. The premise of the series is this: “What if you HAD to buy all your food at Walmart? How close to a 100% Real Food diet could you get?”
My trip to Walmart this week was a little tougher than last week foray into the world of Walmart produce. Healthy fats are a much tougher nut to crack in any grocery store and Walmart is no exception. I did find several good choices though!
Importance of Healthy Fats
My regular readers know how I feel about the priorities to keep in mind while budgeting for a real food diet. If you’re new to real food this is where you should start … healthy fats first! It is vitally important that you eliminate all rancid, trans-fat laden fats and oils from your diet. It is equally important that you eliminate PUFA’s (Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids) from your home cooking. The human body requires only a small percentage of polyunsaturated fats, and these *must* be of the highest quality and never heated to be of any benefit. Virtually none of the PUFA oils in the grocery store qualify. Only high quality oils kept in dark bottles and kept cool stand a chance. And these must never be used for cooking. Seriously, nothing you can do for your health is more important than avoiding these toxic fats.
What are our choices?
Virtually all of the fats found at Walmart or any other large chain grocery are these PUFA oils. They have been through a high-heat chemical process and are as newfangled as newfangled food can be. They are filled with trans-fats and are already rancid before you buy them. So what are we to do? Luckily there are still a few other options to be found. Walmart has butter, olive oil and coconut oil in stock!
Your family needs plenty of good saturated fats for health, preferably saturated fats with plenty of vitamins A and D. High quality grassfed butter would be an ideal fat for many dishes. Beef tallow and lard are excellent for fried foods. Coconut and palm oils are highly saturated and good for frying. Monounsaturates like olive oil are great for salad dressings and sautéing. With these guidelines in mind let’s look at what Walmart has to offer.
Saturated Fats
Your family is most likely getting some sizeable saturated fats from milk, cream, cheese and beef so I think we can safely assume you need to buy saturated fats separately for high heat cooking mostly. And of course you’ll want some butter to flavor dishes with that magical deliciousness only butter has 
. Your best options here are the few butter choices offered in the dairy section and the coconut oil in the oil section. I looked for but didn’t find any Kerrygold grassfed butter. They did have some Kerrygold cheese however 
. You may have better luck at your Walmart though … I know they have Kerrygold at Sam’s (owned by Walmart) so there’s the potential! A reader told me she found Spectrum Coconut Oil on the shelves and lo and behold, there it was at my Walmart too!
Butter is your best bet for saturated fats …
Hope your Walmart has this too … if so, go for it!
They also had this brand, LouAna Coconut Oil. From doing a little research it looks like this is an inferior brand made from coconut by-products called Copra after removing the best part of the coconut meat. It is then heated up, bleached, refined, deodorized and then processed with lye. What you want instead is an unrefined or unrefined coconut oil from a quality source. The difference between the two when it comes to coconut oil is the coconuty smell, that for many dishes you may want to avoid. The Spectrum coconut oil at Walmart is labeled refined and Spectrum’s site states it was 100% mechanically expeller pressed They do make an unrefined version too that is available at Amazon
Don’t be fooled into choosing this one …
What about lard?
If you mosey on over to the oils aisle you’ll likely notice some big tubs of lard on the bottom shelf. This lard isn’t pure real lard but a bastardized facsimile of lard. It contains a mix of hydrogenated vegetable oils with hydrogenated lard mixed in :-O. Stay away from this stuff! You can buy lard either online or locally, but you won’t be finding the real thing at Walmart anytime soon.
Don’t go for this one! It’s actually hydrogenated …
Lots of olive oils!
When it comes to olive oils Walmart is well stocked! However, I urge caution and suggest putting any oil you choose to try to the refrigerator test. Adulteration of olive oil is very widespread and there is a good chance many of these “extra virgin olive oils” aren’t really extra virgin, or perhaps not olive oil at all. I bought the California Olive Ranch oil and put it to the test. And guess what? It passed! I was thrilled … this is the first olive oil I’ve found that passes the test with flying colors. I’ve tried about six different ones so far.
This is a good choice …
Here you can see the thickening of the oil …
Here’s an organic possibility …
Ordering Online
Walmart offers a slightly larger selection of coconut oils online that are available for free home delivery. If you should find your Walmart has a more limited selection of olive oil, the website has a very large variety. Perhaps mentioning your favorite brand to the grocery manager might lead to them keeping it in stock .
Also, Amazon has a much wider variety of olive oil, palm oils and coconut oil. Concern about shipping costs might put people off thinking they will need the $80 a year Amazon Prime membership to take advantage of this variety. That isn’t the case though. Almost everything can be found with “Free Super Saver Shipping” with a little bit of searching. “Free Super Saver Shipping” is UPS ground, and so takes a little longer but if you’re stocking the pantry you probably don’t need it quick . I order quite a few groceries from Amazon myself using this shipping option. There is a link shown in the picture below, that will limit the choices to only those items with “Free Super Saver Shipping”. While I’m mentioning it any Amazon orders you place using the link on this site .
Click on the link to see ONLY items with “Free Super Saver Shipping”
Next week we’ll move on to the meat section and see what we can find there! In the meantime, tell us about your Walmart finds in the comments below.
This post is part of series … Read the rest by following these links
Introduction: Can it be Done?
Part 1: A Quick Tour of Walmart
Part 2: Fruits and Vegetables
Part 3: Fats and Oils
Part 4: Meat and Bones
Part 5: The Dairy Section
Part 6: Pantry Foods
Conclusion: The Nature of Compromise
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Kathy lives just outside of Austin with her husband of 19 years Barry, youngest son Jake, two cats and about a dozen chickens. While not a Grandma yet, with two grown kids she remains hopeful. Kathy wants a world where everyone has fresh wholesome food and feels that cookin' like a granny woman is the surest way to get there.
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
What exactly is the fridge test for olive oil?
Cheeseslave has a post on it that is linked to in the post … In the 2nd Walmart post I did a couple of weeks ago some folks had some questions as well so I’ll point you to that discussion. But in a nutshell, you can learn whether or not an oil is very high in monounsaturates by sticking it in the fridge for awhile. If it thickens up it’s monounsaturated if it doesn’t it’s not. Since olive oil is monounsaturated it will thicken. So there is a high likelihood it’s real olive oil, though the test isn’t conclusive.
Hi Kathy,
I so love your posts, especially in this series. I am an all or nothing perfectionist, so when I started eating traditionally, I panicked if I couldn’t do the best of the best. You help me to relax and go for the best I can do without getting my undies in a twist. Thanks for bringing balance and the voice of reason to my quest!
Awe shucks Beth, thank you
It really makes my day to hear that my posts are helping people do what they can, where they are, with what they have!
I love this series. I know a lot of people who feel they cant eat real food because all they have around is Wal-Mart. I would love it if you would share this on my new blog hop Natural Living Monday! I know my readers will too. Thanks! http://www.naturallivingmamma.com/2012/10/07/natural-living-monday-5/
Thanks for the invite
Thank you for sharing! I am excited to see what you have to share this week!
http://wp.me/p2pBvv-AQ
Oh how they fool us! It really should be illegal, but alas they can pretty much do or say what they want and get around it. Thanks for this article.
I won’t spend a dime at Walmart, but interesting thread. The California oil oil is not pure it’s blended w canoa oil. Just to let you know.
Glad you liked it! Yes, Walmart isn’t the ideal place to shop for a wide variety of reasons. Tell us more about what you know about California Olive Ranch oil. I haven’t found anything online to indicate it’s a blend. This is the one possibility that the refrigerator test will not find. Canola oil is very monounsaturated. This brand is available pretty widely around here … I had bought my first bottle at Sprouts.
Nothing wrong with that brand:
http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2012/12/05/inside-california-olive-ranch-during-harvest/
And:
http://www.truthinoliveoil.com/2012/09/toms-supermarket-picks-quality-oils-good-prices
Thanks David for sharing these links with us. I didn’t think there was a problem and am glad to see it verified. I’ve been buying California Olive Ranch oil for quite a while now.
I suspect that the “extra light tasting” Bertolli olive oil is also bleached and deodorized and God-only-knows-what. But it’s the only thing I’ve found to make really good mayo with. *sigh* I’ve tried all kinds of oils but mayo really requires a flavorless oil.
I’ve been buying the Spectrum brand of coconut oil as in your picture. It doesn’t have a coconutty smell, which I prefer not to have anyway. For skin moisturizer I get the coconutty smelling Jarrow brand. That LouAna brand of coconut oil used to be super cheap…. about half of what they want for it now. I suspect they’ve raised their prices due to the rising popularity of coconut oil.
I saw your link on Authentic Simplicity and hopped over. I just thought I’d let you know that I’ve been using the Newman’s Own olive oil and passes the refrigerator test.
Thanks Mary Ellen! Good to know …
I can’t afford those little jars of Spectrum coconut oil; that’s why I get the 5 lb bucket from Tropical Traditions. I spoon it into pint-sized jars so I can heat it easily. Though if I HAD to shop at Walmart, I’d choose the Spectrum over that Lou Ana stuff.
I get butter from a local dairy, but again, if I HAD to shop at Walmart, yes, I’d buy ANY butter rather than margarine. But we’d be using a lot less of it. Right now, I am a “butter pusher” as we have the good grassfed stuff, chockful of vitamins A, D3 and K2 and I consider it a major health food. Generic butter I would consider an “OK” food, but I’d likely be pushing other fat choices more.
I found a local lard at one of my local groceries (I think it’s a PA only chain, called Karn’s). Not knowing if it was hydrogenated or not, I came home and Googled it before I bought it. Turns out it is plain pure lard, so I bought it.
I’m using the same olive oil you highlighted, the California Olive Ranch stuff.
I also use a lot of bacon grease, but that involves buying uncured pastured bacon; I’ve no idea if Walmart carries that.
I am REALLY liking this series as it points out that we all have to do the best we can where we are – with the stores, farms, markets and budget available to us. Too often, I see people preaching grassfed meat and pastured eggs as if it were the ONLY choice; in real life, we sometimes have to compromise.
I found this post very interesting. It’s good to know that you can get real food oil and fat options at large stores like Walmart. I use a lot of olive oil, but luckily here in Europe the laws surrounding it are very strict (as are the penalties for breaking them) and if the oil is adulterated in any way, even legally combined with another oil, it has to state that on the label.
I haven’t read this book yet but it’s on my reading list, “Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil
“. From what I’ve heard in reviews labels even in Europe aren’t much protection against the kind of fraud that is happening since the bottlers receive the oil *after* the fraud takes place. So they don’t know they have adulterated oil. It’s against the law in the US to mislabel the oil as well. So the bottlers don’t do it knowingly. Though I imagine they often get the oil so inexpensively that their suspicions should be aroused.
Trader Joe’s has liters of olive oil for significantly less than WalMart. My dad (while trying to make some healthy lifestyle adjustments in his old age) has found that a trip to the local Trader Joe’s is worth it every few months even if all you buy is a supply of olive oil.
I have to drive about 30 mins to get to Whole Foods, and only 3 minutes to get to Wally World. So some times its far more convenient to go to the latter. I can get organic milk (For raw milk, I have to leave the state and travel about 4 hours… I am so over making that trip!) Organic rice, I can get bacon that is made with out preservatives, nitrates etc., just like they sell at WF’s. Organic flour. Wheat berries (I don’t bother, but if I wanted to.) Organic bananas, carrots and celery. Yo-baby yogurts, which isn’t homemade but my son wont eat my homemade yogurt, so its a some what decent alternative. They sell apple cider vinegar with the mother, its not Braggs but its an alternative in a pinch. And organic free range eggs. And tucked in one very little tiny row on the tip top shelf hidden behind a sign I can find pure maple syrup, grade A not B. Just to name a few. Obviously a person could get super snooty with any of the items I have listed and say buy local or buy in season, or that Walmart is a horrible company, but if you need or want to shop there I don’t see why not.
I think if a person is just starting out and hasn’t switched to an all organic diet, then Wal mart would be super easy to shop at for a whole foods diet. You can eat a whole foods conventional diet to get started and as you ease into that lifestyle start slowly replacing conventional items with organic items.
Thank you so much for doing these “practical” posts, shopping in WalMart. That’s what we need in today’s world. It’s nice reading about all the real food but until you know how to really apply it, it’s not that helpful. Thanks again – I look forward to more practicality!
This year I’ll be working at making it all much more practical and actionable.
After reading the Stanford study on extra virgin olive oils, which concluded many oils were blended or so old as to have lost nutrients qualifying as extra or virgin, I set out in search of olive oil with the harvest date, as opposed to bottled date, as they suggested. And the only one I found was California Olive Oil. Not only was it fairly local in origin (I live in Idaho), and reasonably priced (for me), but I loved the taste! I am just thrilled with it!
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